A fair chance - United Nations Girls' Education Initiative

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Box 9: Gender mainstreaming in DPEP, IndiaGirls’ education has been mainstreamed in the District Primary Education Project (DPEP) which is being implemented in 271districts in 15 states in India with strong backing by a consortium of donors. DPEP has adopted a two-pronged strategy,namely to make the education system more responsive to the needs and constraints of girls, and to create community demandfor girls’ education and facilitate enabling conditions for people’s participation. ‘The most important contribution of the genderand social equity-related work of DPEP is that it has succeeded in getting official recognition of, and support for, multiplestrategies necessary to reach out to the unreached.’ (India report).DPEP has not only outlined gender-related goals, it also provides a well-defined monitoring system with a mandate to functionas a catalyst, troubleshoot and provide specific inputs by way of training and resource support. At the national level, theNational Project Director has overall responsibility for ensuring that girls’ education objectives are mainstreamed in allparticipating states. External consultants help monitor and evaluate progress with respect to these goals. A GenderCoordinator has been appointed in each state. These coordinators meet every six months to review progress and makeconcrete recommendations. They identify low female literacy areas and constraints, review action plans made to promote girls’participation, organise conventions and awareness camps, facilitate the formation of mothers’ groups, and arrange to organisetraining for women to participate effectively in the newly created Village Education Committees. At the district level, a DistrictGender Coordinator is responsible for tracking girls’ participation. She is supported by gender focal points at the Block/Talukalevels. In some states, a District Resource Group provides this support.The primary work of Gender Coordinators is to sensitise the system to reach out and cater to the needs of girls in a nonjudgementaland gender-sensitive manner. Their activities include community mobilisation, organising escorts for girls,counseling parents, addressing girls’ work burdens, etc.The Village Education Committee (VEC) is the most important vehicle for increasing women’s participation and improving theenrolment and retention rates for girls. However, the representation of women on VECs varies enormously across the states.Source: India Reportcritical, when, in fact, demand factors tend to be moreimportant for girls. Another problem is thatpoliticians have found it easy to dismiss ‘gender’ as aforeign concept, partly because women’s groups, NGOsand other civil society members who could act aschampions for girls’ education, have been left ‘out ofthe loop’ in policy dialogue between governments anddonors. Similarly, in Pakistan and Nigeria it has been along uphill struggle to get politicians and policymakersto mainstream gender in major donor-supportededucation projects. A key factor behind recentprogress has been the co-option of gender advocatesfrom the NGO sector into influential policy-makingpositions in government, bringing with them not onlytheir own commitment but also their capacity to reachout to, and mobilise, wider civil society networks.Clearly there is no blueprint because these constraintsvary so much from one country to another. However,a balanced package addressing all aspects of genderinequalities in education is essential. Examples fromIndia and Malawi offer some possibilities (see Box 8and 9).Priority measuresGovernments and NGOs have adopted a range ofpolicies, programmes and projects in order toimprove girls’ education. The key measures that havebeen introduced in the case study countries aresummarised in Table 8. Comparative analysissuggests that within an integrated and comprehensivestrategy, the following interventions have beenespecially effective: free primary education, increasedincentives, more accessible schools, tackling sexualharassment and discrimination against pregnantpupils, developing a network of community schools,introducing bridging programmes to mainstreamnon-formal education, and promoting early childhoodeducation and care.32
Free primary education for allThe whole or partial abolition of primary school feeshas been a central plank of recent UPE strategies inmany countries including Kenya, Tanzania, TheGambia, Malawi, Ethiopia, Uganda, Bangladesh,Cambodia, India, and Nepal. Removing these fees hassignalled government commitment to education as aright, and has helped to release enormous pent-updemand for education, causing massive increases inboth girls’ and boys’ enrolments. In Malawi, forexample, the number of primary school pupilsjumped up by 50 per cent, from 1.9 million to3.0 million, in just one year. In Bangladesh, totalenrolment in primary and basic education rose fromnearly 12 million in 1990, to 18 million in 2001.The very success of free primary education has in turncreated new financial and administrative challenges.Ministries face urgent needs to train and employmore teachers and to supply more classrooms andlearning materials at primary level, in order to bringclass sizes back down to reasonable levels. In Malawi,for example, classes of 150 pupils are nowcommonplace. In government primary schools inBangladesh, this figure can reach 200. At the sametime, they must also respond to unprecedenteddemand for secondary school places, which remain inwoefully short supply in most African and South Asiancountries. If the secondary bottleneck is not quicklyaddressed, there is a real risk of recreating inequalitiesat the next rung up the ladder, and perhaps ultimatelyundermining demand for primary education.Finally, the ‘hidden costs’ of sending children to schoolremain as high as ever in most countries, and efforts toregulate or abolish the array of ‘unofficial’ chargeslevied by school committees and headteachers, havemet with mixed results. In Tanzania, a new blockgrant to schools was introduced in 2002 to reduce therisk that schools would impose additional charges tomake up for lost income from official fees. There havebeen difficulties, however, in ensuring that theseTable 8: Gender Interventions, level of effort✓✓✓ = level of effortBangladeshIndiaNepalPakistanCambodiaEthiopiaMalawiMaliNigeriaOverall Government Commitment to Gender Equality ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 0Compulstory Education ✓ ✓ 0 ✓ 0 0 0 0 ✓Reduced Costs/Higher Incentives for Education ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 0 ✓Gender Sensitive Curriculum ✓ ✓ ✓ 0 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓Female Teachers ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓Infrastructure: Water and Toilets ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ na ✓Access to School/Distance ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓Alternative/Schools Community ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 0Quality Education ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ na ✓33
Page 1 and 2: ContentsIntroduction 2Report object
Page 3 and 4: Box 1: Education Can Save Your Life
Page 5 and 6: travel on their own. As Sukhiya Yad
Page 7 and 8: 1. How big are the Education Gender
Page 9 and 10: Table 1: GER gender gaps for primar
Page 11 and 12: than 20 percentage points) in 15 co
Page 13 and 14: Figure 5: Education attainment by g
Page 15 and 16: Table 3: GER gender gaps for primar
Page 17 and 18: Figure 8: Change in educational att
Page 19 and 20: 2. Why do fewer girls go to school?
Page 21 and 22: daughters to get a good enough educ
Page 23 and 24: Fees and charges for education have
Page 25 and 26: In Nepal, girls contribute at least
Page 27 and 28: fact that it is official policy tha
Page 29 and 30: 3. What has been done to close the
Page 31: However, international agencies cou
Page 35 and 36: Box 10: The Female Secondary School
Page 37 and 38: Ensuring girls’ safety anddignity
Page 39 and 40: Community schoolsThe emergence of v
Page 41 and 42: A number of other ‘alternative’
Page 43 and 44: 4. Beyond rhetoric:Making gender eq
Page 45 and 46: In Sub-Saharan Africa, the overall
Page 47 and 48: fewer resources, offer fewer hours
Page 49 and 50: governments to be able to commit ex
Page 51 and 52: Ilon, L. 1992. ‘Fitting girls’
Page 53 and 54: ANNEX 1Recommendations from the cou
Page 55 and 56: Ethiopia1.In order to reach the rur
Page 57 and 58: 4. Backward and forward linkages: I
Page 59 and 60: (iv) It has been illustrated that s
Page 61 and 62: women; legal rights counseling; HIV
Page 63 and 64: Female teachers1.Increase the numbe
Page 65 and 66: topics or subjects that will highli
Page 67 and 68: ANNEX 2Additional tablesAnnex 2 tab
Page 69 and 70: no schooling, no schooling, primary
Page 71 and 72: Annex 2 table 4: Percentage change

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